By Gloria Pazmino

(CNN) — The Trump administration agreed in a court settlement on Monday to keep the Pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument.

The administration removed the rainbow LGBTQ flag from the monument in New York City in February due to a government directive that determined what kinds of flags can be flown at national park sites.

The move drew intense backlash from the LGBTQ community and local officials in New York who viewed it as an attack on LGBTQ history.

The Stonewall Inn, an iconic bar in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, is considered the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement in the US. It was the site of a 1969 police raid that sparked protests as the bar’s patrons fought back. The riots led to the first gay Pride march in 1970.

Documents filed in federal district court in Manhattan on Monday show that the Trump administration agreed to a voluntary dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a group of nonprofits, which alleged that the Trump administration’s order violated federal law.

The settlement represents a loss for the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back diversity initiatives and change what is displayed at national parks across the country.

As part of the agreement, the federal government is set to return the flag to the monument’s official flagpole within the next seven days. The site will also fly the American flag and the flag for the National Park Service.

The flag was removed due to Department of the Interior guidance from January that sought to restrict what kind of flags can be flown at national park sites.

According to that National Park Service memorandum, the agency prohibits “non-agency flags and pennants” that are not the US flag or the Interior Department flag. There are exceptions for historical flags, military flags or flags of federally recognized tribal nations within the parks.

Days after the flag’s removal, hundreds of people held a protest outside the monument and local officials raised the Pride flag again, albeit in an unofficial capacity.

“The sudden, arbitrary, and capricious removal of the Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument was yet another act by this administration to erase the LGBTQ+ community,” Karen Loewy, co-counsel for plaintiffs and senior counsel at Lambda Legal, said in a statement about the lawsuit settlement.

“Today, the government has pledged to restore this important symbol back to where it belongs.”

CNN has reached out to the National Park Service for comment.

The-CNN-Wire
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